


this is vesper control to DOPPO; you are 4546DEEP.

by Bulletprccf



Category: Subnautica (Video Game), ヒプノシスマイク | Hypnosis Mic (Albums)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, an abnormal take on a mermaid au., characters are listed in order of appearance., relationships will change as they are revealed., stalker-chan is a good girl at heart and deserves to be redeemed., water. lots and lots of water.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-19 02:11:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18129587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bulletprccf/pseuds/Bulletprccf
Summary: I think there's a myth about the sun swallowed by the sea.  If not, maybe someone can find the PDA on my dead body to write one with.





	this is vesper control to DOPPO; you are 4546DEEP.

**Author's Note:**

> I hate this planet that consumed the sun. “An alien malfunction”...yeah, sure. I’m positive we weren’t fucking around with it or anything.  
> Maybe it’s cursed, this spot. The _Aurora_ went down here around a year ago. Now the _Cloudburst_. Perhaps this planet is just a huge, hungry beast that desires ships powered on nuclear reactions.  
> Maybe it can eat me, too.

          The wreckage stands against the red planet in the sky, casting a long shadow over the water.  The twist of metal appears ethereal in the pale light, climbing higher than the floating island called home.

          The eternal ocean glimmers in the night, reflecting a purple -- deep, like the sky.  It’s colder at night, even if the wind bypasses this section of 4546B.

          I hate this planet that consumed the sun.  “An alien malfunction”...yeah, sure. I’m positive we weren’t fucking around with it or anything.

          ...It’d be nice if I was on that drop ship, too.  But no, I had to be sick, and I had to encourage HIfumi to come first.

          I should have listened to him when he said he wanted to play nurse for me.

          It’s fine.  I’ll meet him again.

          Ah, it’s unfortunate.  I didn’t hit the surface hard enough.  I’ve heard drowning is a bad way to go.  True, I guess. It’s just cold right now.

          But it’s been cold without my sun for a while.

 

\--- ♆ ---

 

          “Not yet, Doppo.  We are different, but we go together.”

 

\--- ♆ ---

 

          “Hifumi!”

          I sit up sharply, choking on everything but my heart.  Belatedly it dawns on me that A) I am alive, B) my goddamn arm is broken, and C) I can hear my boss yelling something over my intercom about “Izanami.”

          Coughing, my lungs grasp for air and only sand slips through my fingers.  Sand? Blearily peering around, I see ferns, voxel shrubs, ming plants, and a winding trail leading away from this sheltered beach.  Cragged and moss-covered rocks reach up and over the cave entrance, the sun catches on the water in such a way that it glitters like gold for just a moment.  It feels like I’m being watched...

          But it always feels like that here.

          I can hear the manager’s voice in addition to my boss’s right now.  She’s asking if I’m all right. If I don’t remember her name, can I pass it off as being waterlogged?  All I remember is that she was passably cute but was a bit too eager to talk to Hifumi.

          “S-Sorry -- _hack_ \-- everyone.”

          “Mr. Kannonzaka, are you all right?  What happened?”

          “I employed a fool to go down there, is what happened!  I thought using Izanami’s body as bait would give him reason enough to shape up, but _nooo_ , I still have a bumbling idio -- ”

          “Sir, please!  It’s not right to talk about Hifumi in such a way!”

          “Don’t talk back to me, girl; I’ll talk about who I damn well please.  Get this moron back on his feet and direct him where to go!”

          I can hear her protest as he gets further away.  I can hear another woman softly reassure my manager that she’s not in danger of being sent away -- I think that one is the manager for the arctic contractors.  I’ve spoken to her a couple of times. She’s businesslike, but not unreasonable, and cares about her coworkers, from what it seems. Her sister is one of her contractors, if I remember correctly.

          “Mr. Kannonzaka?” Ah, it’s the girl who likes Hifumi so much.  Her voice is timid, like the first time she spoke to Hifumi.

          “ -- _cough_ \-- Yes, I’m still here.”

          “Don’t worry about the CEO, okay?  We can figure out a way to finish this job at our own pace.  Are you okay?”

          “Okay enough.  I hit the water pretty hard, so I’m still really dazed...Thanks for asking, though.  And for defending Hifumi...thanks.”

          “Oh...”  I never noticed how soft her voice is.  “Yes, of course.  It’s kind of silly, but I still have this tiny ray of hope that he’s still alive.”

          “Yeah...me, too.”

          “If...If you need any more supplies, let me know, okay?  I know the CEO was gruff, but he...was maybe just worried?”

          “Yeah, but only because salaries cost less than lawsuits.”

          There’s a pause, and then a slight giggle.  “Sam’s sister said exactly the same thing last week.  Is that the planet doing that?”

          “I think I was already like this.”  I sigh, and belatedly remember Hifumi’s nickname for this girl.  Maybe it would be okay?  “Hey, Kitten, where do I go from here?”

          She gives a soft gasp at the name, but I can hear the smile in her voice.  “Give me just a second; I’ll send your next task to your PDA.”

 

\--- ♆ ---

 

          “Investigate the _Cloudburst_.”  Like I haven’t done that a million times already.  “Build an underwater base.  We might need to go deeper.”  If Alterra wanted a fish contractor they should’ve talked to one of the ten billion of them already in the water.

          I’ve already got the radiation suit.  Kitten is more helpful than I expected with gathering materials.  I think she’s going against regulation on how she uses her resources, but we’re more efficient than other teams, I think.  She even sent me a builder tool.

          To make a habitat I need a lot of titanium, so the first day is spent mining that.  At sunset I construct a single-room habitat on the cusp of the underwater mountains and the floating islands.  I feel like Kitten and I will get into trouble if I don’t pretend to do something more productive, so I dive into the water and make my way toward the wreck of the _Cloudburst_.

          Maybe it’s cursed, this spot.  The _Aurora_ went down here around a year ago.  Now the _Cloudburst_.  Perhaps this planet is just a huge, hungry beast that desires ships powered on nuclear reactions.

          Maybe it can eat me, too.

 

\--- ♆ ---

 

          I send Kitten to bed at around 1 A.M. crater time, with a promise that I’d press my panic button if I felt odd after my “fall” ( Kitten had attributed it to dizziness due to dehydration, even though she and I both know that was definitely not the case ).  My _nap_ earlier in the day is making me less tired, even with the splint I have on my arm.  There’s the back end of the _Cloudburst_ open, but it’s the most radiation-heavy. I wonder if it’s really that painful to die from radiation poisoning.  Guess I might find out.  At least I can avoid the living quarters.  I...don’t want to find any of Hifumi’s things.

          After a fair bit of searching, I find a small hole busted into the wall near the engine room, if not in it.  What’s weird is that it looks like it was smashed through from the inside, but it’s way too small for a human to fit through.

          ...Oh, god, is there gonna be someone’s body?  Who...didn’t make it?

          I peer in through the hole, though the lack of light at this area under the ship makes it hard to see.  There’s not enough room for my flashlight.  I’ll have to find a way in to thoroughly check.

          The sun is peeking over the edge of the horizon as I round the grounded titan, with golden fingers stretching up toward the cloudless sky, dragging with it colors of blush and foundation, wiping away the tired bags of the night.

          I float there, for a moment, in the large coffin of sea that contains the corpses of my only beloved friend and the other people we knew.  I wonder if the sharks of this planet have already eaten them.  Maybe they became part of a reaper leviathan, and now fuel its cells.  Maybe, knocked out and weighed down, they sank to the depths and landed in a crab squid nest, or the kelp now use their bones as fertilizer.  Maybe the little fish in the shallows have been oxygenating on the microscopic remains in the water.  Eventually, we might become the dirt of the islands here.

          Perhaps I can drift through the tiny grasps of table coral.  Maybe it will color based on my hair.  What a simple afterlife, being food for something that’s part animal and part plant.  Ah, but that’s complicated.

          Maybe if I just stay here, staring at the sky, being blinded by the brilliance of reverie, I’ll be swallowed whole by a ghost leviathan.

          Hopefully God will have mercy and just let me die.  I don’t want to be Jonah.  I’m not important enough for that.

          I’m only here to collect the carcasses of those who came before me.  I’m not even enough to be blessed with the vision of glittering gold that splashes before me, the mirage matching the color of --

          “HIFU -- ”

          Abruptly -- a hand covers my mouth, with long and firm fingers.  Kicking, I make for the shore, only to be pulled back and under the water by an arm that’s obviously skilled at holding thrashing people in place.  The skin touching my face is cracked and calloused, though when it speaks, the voice of the deep is unexpected gentle:

          “Not now.”

          And for the second time, I dodge the final respite with blessed unconscious darkness.

 

\--- ♆ ---

 

          I must have blacked out only for a minute or two, because I open my eyes to a dim violet glow, vaguely the same hue as neon signs back home.  Am I dead?  Home?  No, that can’t be.  This arm wouldn’t be dragging be downward if I was.  Speaking of --

          I kick, and clearly my quick awakening takes my assailant by surprise as the arm releases me.  I can see a habitat nearby, and god, do I need oxygen.

          There is light growing as I claw through the water, fighting my way towards what makes out to be a moonpool, tucked away into the base of a large jellyshroom.  The Degasi base?  No, this is different, though similar.  Had another team refurbished it?  Something seems _off_ with its design, but the pressing need of my lungs outweighs the mystery.

          The surface breaks with a loud cough, relinquishing me and me relinquishing my grip on certain death.  I don’t register when something surfaces behind me quietly, nor the _swish-slop_ of it sliding onto the walkway edge of the entrance.

          Instead, I hear a gasp, soft and yet so, _so_ familiar.  I _feel_ , rather than see just yet, someone enter the water with me, the solid _thump_ of his body against mine, and the explosion of warmth inside when lips press against mine for the first time in weeks.  Soft hands thread through my hair while an eager tongue begs to reunite with mine.  And I _know_ him.  He is what has been missing, the companion to the lonely surface above the planet.  He is the only thing that has ever been solid, tangible, constant.  He is complicated and he is easy, like counting numbers.  It starts so simple, love, like small little digits: one, two three.  But then it grows into something frightening and addicting and then you disappear --

_Hifumi_.

          You surface, bringing me with you, an arm snaked around my waist, holding me close, while the other pushes the helmet of the radiation suit off.  It flops onto the water, bobbing close and brushing the edge of my shoulder, and we separate just a bit, enough to breathe.

          “ _Doppo._ ”

          Your voice is so soft, filled with so much more emotion that I could ever hope to possess, much less profess.  Your hands touches my cheek like something precious and I feel the need to cry.  You’re _here_.  I can _touch you_.  You’re _alive._

          And it breaks, the flimsy dam inside that holds itself together by foiled suicide attempts and half-baked sunrises that remind me of you.  And the tears come and I hear the damn PDA voice from somewhere behind me that I’m slightly dehydrated but _fuck it all_.  I throw my good arm around you and kiss along your throat, your shoulder -- _you_.  You, who still smell like expensive cologne that must just be your skin, whose skin feels so soft just like you still moisturize it daily, whose sob gives away that you, for some reason, missed me, too.

          A few minutes pass, coiled with that suffocating hug and scattered kisses and cries, until a gentle voice, a voice that I can only attribute to the sea itself because of how it grabbed me, breaks the rhythm with a soft, “Hifumi, you should get him out of the water.  It’s cold down here.”

          My eyes fly open and I whirl around, pushing Hifumi behind me, sliding into my vision -- a, a, a...

          “N-No -- _what_?”

          Calmly sitting against the ladder to the water is a large man who I belatedly barely identify as Dr. Jakurai Jinguji, the lead doctor on the _Cloudburst_ , although he...his hands are folded in his lap, and I mutedly recognize that he must have been the one to drag me down here, but his lap...comprises instead of legs, a lengthy, elegant tail of shimmering violet, the hues one might expect of both ghosts and the early dusk sky.  His waist meets it in a curved V shape, with some sort of ruffled fin winding around where his hip bones should be.  It flows down and ends somewhere beneath the light waves.  His beautiful long hair is twisted into an elegant fishtail braid and adorned with small shells and starfish in such a manner than I can only assume was done by Hifumi.  The doctor looks tired, so very tired.  And then I know:

          Yeah, I should get out of the water.  This story is going to take a while.

 

\--- ♆ ---

 

          A few minutes after I get out, it dawns on me what was different about this place as I swam toward it: there are waterways in the middle of the floor, as if designed for someone to travel through the base by tail instead of feet.  Hifumi offers me a warm drink as Dr. Jinguji informs me there are dry clothes in the living quarters one room over.  In my state of slight shock, I can’t really refuse either of them, and Hifumi takes off through the water-path as I tread on the side of it.

          ...Hifumi is then also…

          Questions waft through my head, making me nearly dizzy with anticipation for the talk to come.  I barely notice the shirt that should have been so obviously from the crate by Hifumi’s bunk in the _Cloudburst_ ’s living quarters.  I keep the wetsuit on around my waist more out of habit than comfort, though I do take the blasted flippers off.  I never liked walking with them on.

          I return before Hifumi does, but the reason for that becomes clear enough when he buoys back with a tray hovering on the water in front of him.  It has three cups resting on it, as well as some sort of red cookie.  Hifumi’s a culinary genius, really, so it could be made of anything he’s found down here that isn’t superiorly gross.

          “I brought some for you, too, Doc!”

          Dr. Jinguji has not moved since we left, though when a low moan rattles the walls of the habitat ever so slighty, he pulls his tail from the water, revealing and edged fin ribbed entirely of seawater, or at least what appears to be it, with a deep navy blending to azure and then seafoam, and it is nearly as long as his tail and certainly at least three times as wide.  He takes care to not hit me with it, though I doubt it would have hurt.  “Thank you, Hifumi, but you should also get out of the water. The crabsnakes are waking up.”

          “But...”  He looks at me, reluctant.

          I approach the edge of the water and pick the tea tray up.  “Up.”

          “But, Dop...I don’t look...like I used to.”  He sounds so uncertain, and usually I don’t say weird mushy stuff, but clearly I’m not thinking too straight.

          “Hifumi...you could look like one of the sea emperor leviathans and I’d just be happy you survived.”

          I really hope nobody noticed my voice crack.

          His eyes shine a bit more than they should, and he scrubs at them with the back of his wrist.  He dives for just a brief second before pushing up out of the water, pulling himself up between Dr. Jinguji and me, revealing the beautiful golden glitter I saw when I cried out earlier.  Hifumi’s tail isn’t quite as long as the doctor’s, and the fin where it meets his waist is rounded instead of ruffled.  It’s a bright shade of lime, and I swear the undertone of his hair has been changed to match the color.  His tail sparkles its way from canary to chartreuse and ties to a pair of fins that again, aren’t quite as large as the doctor’s one flipper, but aren’t entirely _small_ , either.  They shift from the ending shade of his tail to the lime color of his waist, and I can’t help the soft gasp that escapes without my allowance:

          “ _Beautiful_...”

          He blushes and looks away, staring into Dr. Jinguji’s chest, who has the smallest of smiles on his lips as he reaches up to flick a button that softly whirrs a shutter to life.  It slides along the bottom of the pool and encloses the water pathway, making it all very shallow.  A passing crabsnake thumps its tail against the metal in annoyance but continues on its way.

          “Instead of staying here, should we move to the main room?”

          Hifumi, eager to get rid of my scrutiny, nods and starts to slide along the floor, dipping the end of his fins back into the water.  Curiously, I look at the doctor.

          “When the shutter is closed, there isn’t a way for you two to get around.”

          He gives a gentle shrug.  “It is inconvenient, but we are used to much worse.”

          I can’t imagine what this talk will bring.

 

\--- ♆ ---

 

          We get settled in the main room, with me on the bed ( after finally changing my pants at Dr. Jinguji’s reassurance that the walls were quite sound here ) and the two of them in the shallow ring in the center of the room.  The tray rests on a box between us, and Dr. Jinguji begins to speak.

          “The blast sent us careening toward the ocean.  The captain was dead on impact, and Mr. Iruma and Samatoki were attempting to steer us toward the crater before they evacuated to lifepods.  Mr. Busujima was in the engine room, attempting to put out the fire before the accelerators exploded and killed the rest of us.  The Yamada siblings had been ejected in a life pod already, at my own insistence that they needed to stay together.  Prof. Yumeno, Mr. Arisugawa, and Hifumi were also gone by that point.  I was assisting Mr. Housen and Mr. Shitou into another life pod when the ship made impact.  They...did not survive the crash.  Amemura and the women of Chu-Oh-Ku had taken another two life pods before us, taking Samatoki’s sister with them.  I saw my own two nurses off, but I still do not know of their current whereabouts.  A couple other life pods ejected before we hit the ground, but I could not say of their inhabitants nor if there are survivors.”

          “It took a while to find the doc.”  Hifumi’s voice is uncharacteristically quiet, and his eyes are on the steam rising from his coffee.  His index finger curls along the curve, a nervous tic he’s had since forever.  “It was like the sea was on fire.  I think I passed out once because of smoke inhalation.  An explosion tore a hole in the side of our life pod, and Dice shoved Gentaro out of it to save him from the fire.  He insisted I go next, but before I could pull him with me, the _Cloudburst_ exploded, sending Gentaro out to sea with a huge shockwave, and a large piece of metal...crushed the life pod, sending Dice down to the depths.”

          “Hifumi was actually very heroic.  He pushed an entire beam off of me when he found me.  I’d been struck unconscious during the crash, and he helped revive me and got me off the ship.  After that...we started finding the others.  Or...what was left.  Some things...also found us.”

          “Dop, you know those sea emperor leviathan juveniles that are friendly toward us?  Doc here can speak to them -- ”

          “It’s more accurate to say they speak to me -- ”

          “Either way, they can talk.  And it’s only to him, and nobody knows why.  Er, well, nobody else outside of us, the sea emperors, and Ramuda even know it happens, though Ramuda’s probably told the women, but aside from that -- ”

          “Wait, wait.”  I hold up a hand, and the chatter stops.  “When you say, ‘nobody else,’ who...who else survived?  And...how did you two...”  I gesture toward their tails.

          Hifumi sighs and just looks at his.

          Dr. Jinguji breathes heavily through his nose.  “We were the last two to acquire these.  Amemura was the first.  We found him crushed down here, after following his attempt at a breadcrumb trail: his clothes.  He was in poor shape.”

          “Doppo, it was _bad_ .  He’d been totally crushed under like the entire cargo bay of the _Cloudburst_ and he was fading fast.  But the sea emperors, they...uh...well, I’m not really sure, but they smeared some stuff?  On him, and it put him in like this stasis or something.”

          “It is the enzyme that stops the Kharaa virus.  It turns out it also has reconstructive properties.  The sea emperors volunteered to help however they could, because the other contractors they had met had been very kind to them.  However, the enzyme itself wasn’t enough.  We needed other materials to stabilize him and help with limb regrowth.”

          “We started scanning everything, like... _everything_ .  The sea emps knew _some_ stuff about the sea, like which fish are related and junk, but they don’t know about _us_.  They suggested to use stuff that was on the island, since we breathe air?  They were kinda right...”

          “I designed and constructed Amemura’s tail myself, with the help of the kind sea emperors.  His injuries started to heal with the help of the pink caps and the pygmy fans, so I shaped it from those.  However, motor functions didn’t seem to be returning, even with the technology Hifumi salvaged from the various debris sites around the area.  I shared this problem with our local friends, and they brought me a most curious object: an ion crystal.  And...miraculously, the ion crystal resuscitated Amemura’s lower half, as well as Amemura himself.”

          “And...”  Everyone in our division knew that Ramuda Amemura and Dr. Jakurai Jinguji do _not_ get along.  “How did he feel about his...you know.”

          “He was, like, actually super chill about it?  He actually thanked Jakurai for saving his life.  I think he kinda realized that Doc had to work super hard to save him.”

          “Huh...”

          “Yeah, shocked me, too.  He said something weird, though.  He asked about the explosion on the ship, and when I told him it was the planet that shot us down and not an explosion, he seemed confused.”

          “It’s still concerning, because of what it implies, but I had others to seek out at the time.”  Dr. Jinguji looks tired again.  I really hope none of my sessions with him made him look like that...

          “But, what about the others?  And you two...didn’t get tails in that event.  So...why...?”

          Dr. Jinguji shakes his head.  “It is late, and the only rest you’ve had in two days is from being knocked unconscious.  You should sleep. Hifumi and I cannot leave while the shutters are drawn, so you should use that bed.  I will tend to your arm while you sleep.  A broken bone should be easy at this point.”

          But how would they know --

          The color drains from my face, and I can feel it.  I look at Hifumi, eyes wide, panicking immediately.  “Hi-Hifumi, I’d never leave you, I thought you were gone, I would have never jumped if I knew -- ”

          “Whoa, hey, hey!”  Hifumi slides across the floor and laces fingers with mine.  “I’m not upset, Dop.  I just wish you’d take better care of yourself.  I can’t be there every time to catch you when you decide to leap off a cliff into the ocean.”

          “Y-You...caught...me?”

          “...Yeah.”

          “But...how long were you there?”

          Hifumi seems to have trouble formulating a response, a wide range of thoughts flitting through his rich eyes.

          Dr. Jinguji, bless him, explains.  “Alterra cannot know of us, of what we’ve become.”  I nod, understanding immediately.  The company is a bunch of greedy mad scientists only interested in money and recognition.  “Despite this danger...Hifumi wanted to check on you once Ichiro told us you were sent down here.  We’ve been making stealthy trips to the floating island every day.”

          “Every...day?”

          “I did not have the opportunity to break your transmitter until today.  I am sorry.”

          “No, I’m an idiot, so that’s fine, but...why every day?”

          To this, Dr. Jinguji only smiles and nudges Hifumi with his flipper.

          I look at him, confused.  “Hifumi?”

          “...It’s ‘cause you’re gorgeous, Dop.  I only wanted to check on you, honest, and then we were gonna come up with a plan to tell you, but...Dop, the way the sun catches your hair makes it look like fire, and your highlights make it look like part of the sea when you’re in the water...I wanna kiss you.”

          And he does.  And I only think of the doctor after maybe forty-five seconds, but I guess he’s already seen the two of us making out like the sobbing idiots we are when I first got here, and he has an extreme tolerance for bullshit, so I mean.  I guess it’s fine.

          When we part for air, I whisper, “But _why_ , Hifumi?  Why come every day just to look at _me_?”

          The way he looks at me makes me feel like a fool.  “I love you, Doppo Kannonzaka.  Isn’t that reason enough?”

          And as he holds me close to him, as if _I’m_ the best discovery this ocean planet had to offer, he starts to sing, and I think that maybe it _is_ reason enough.  I didn’t have plans to drift off here, but his voice is so mesmerizing that I can’t really help it.

          “ _Safety shallows hide the gallows,_

_crush debris, and our screams unhallow._

_A mouth of hell comes the deep,_

_and to never can I sleep._

_I again prayed for the sunrays,_

_just once longer to see your gaze._

_But not even dreams said a peep,_

_and so never can I sleep._

_It burned and wet with my regret_

_that I didn’t tell you besmet,_

_but now your presence mine t’keep,_

_and so just now can I sleep._

_Please safely sway in my arms again,_

_and also tell me night and day:_

_‘I love you, sunshine, ever so deep,’_

_and now beside me again, sleep._ ”

          And I do, head tucked against the sun’s shoulder, wrapped up in his arms.  Before I lose myself to the safe comfort, the last thing I’m aware of is a gentle, warm cover being placed over us, softly pulsing to the rhythm of a heartbeat but having the texture like a fish egg’s shell.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for choosing Alterra spacelines, the premier space travel with in-flight entertainment. Tonight's light reading was originally inspired by [this work](https://twitter.com/ayane1900/status/1103374403570548736). We hope you will join us on your return flight to read the next chapter in this story.


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